


It's my home

by backfourteen



Category: Football RPF
Genre: Angst, Arsenal FC, Banter, Carlamberlain, High qual bants, M/M, More characters to come, Southampton FC, my first attempt at multi-chapter fic, this pairing needs more fic imo, wow this one ISN'T about Liverpool??
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-03
Updated: 2015-12-07
Packaged: 2018-05-04 18:31:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5344253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/backfourteen/pseuds/backfourteen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I’ve been…thinking a lot lately about what the best thing that ever happened to me is. And of course I said football, Arsenal. Natural response. But I wanted, I think, to say, you know. Us. Our thing.” </p><p><i>Our thing</i>. </p><p>Their scattered timeline and the eventual convergence of their past and present.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Each chapter will include a current part and a past part (at least that's the plan for now). 
> 
> Carlamberlain gets me excited so I didn't want to wait until the whole thing was finished to starting posting parts. 
> 
> Title from the Benjamin Clementine song "Cornerstone" because that's all I've been listening to for days.

**August 2014**

Alex wakes up to the sound of laughter. Whoever’s beside him is laughing and is shaking the entire bed, not even trying to stifle the noise. He’s facing the wall of the bedroom, toward the windows, and he notices that it’s still relatively dark. He chalks it up to being a dream until he recognizes the sounds playing in a loop, the voices coming from beside him, and turns groggily over to see his worst nightmare playing out before his eyes. 

_I can’t change that I look like Lewis Hamilton. I can’t change that my hair is perfecto. I can’t change my height. I can’t change that I look like a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle. I can’t change that I am gorgeous. But together we can change the game. Players are lacing up to kick homophobia out of football. Use #RainbowLaces to get involved and show your support. Cowabungaaaa_

“See, that’s my favorite part! _Cowabungaaaaa_. Morning, love. It’s quite early.”

Alex narrows his eyes at the woman and sits up, covering himself with the sheets around him even though he’s in boxers. Nothing’s piecing together quickly enough except for his own annoyance.

“Why’ve you got my phone?”

Without responding, the woman replays the video on Alex’s phone, laughing and responding at the same spots as before. _I can’t change that I look like Lewis Hamilton._ “Does he really look that much like Lewis Hamilton in real life?” _I can’t change that my hair is perfecto._ “Who’s that? He new?”

“Sorry, but. Why’ve. You got. My phone.”

This time, she pauses the video and hands it easily back to Alex. He takes it and sees she has at least twenty tabs open on the browser playing the same video and also has his messages open. He looks back up at her incredulously, and she shrugs. 

“It kept going off while I was trying to sleep, so I tried to shut the sound off, but then I somehow managed to –”

“Somehow managed to. Mhm. Go on.”

“Somehow managed to click on your messages and someone sent you the link along with forty bloody messages taking the piss. Mostly at you. It’s a funny video.”

“I know. I’m in it.”

“It’s true, though.”

Alex gets out of bed and flips on the light, glancing down at the wristwatch he accidentally slept in. 7:30 am. _Perfect time to be woken up by the girl you brought home_ , Alex thinks as he tidies the room a bit, gathering the woman’s (Jasmine, he thinks) things and placing them gingerly on a desk which gets no other use besides holding clothes during/after sex. In his dry-mouthed hangover haze, he knows two things for sure: he has to get ready for training and he knows nothing about this woman besides that they met last night and definitely had sex. She watches him intently. 

“You do look like a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle.”

Alex is bent over, gathering his trousers from the foot of the bed, and he snaps back up, almost expressionless, ears getting a little hot. 

“Oh, fine. Never heard that one before.”

“You said it yourself!”

“Last time I do an advert with Paddy Power. Whether it’s about gay footballers, saving fucking puppies or, you know, kidney donation to the queen herself, whatever you like. The joke’s funny for a bit, and then.”

Jasmine begins to laugh again and Alex speeds up the cleaning process, pausing when he sees assorted Arsenal gear haphazard all over the bathroom. 

“What’s all this?”

“You wanted to show it to me last night. Tried a lot of it on and asked me if you looked good in it. You were well bevvied, then, if you don’t remember the right fashion show you put on. More than I thought.”

“You haven’t got pictures of that, have you?”

Jasmine snickers and lunges for her own phone on the bedside table just as Alex does, and she manages to snag it and clutches it tightly to her chest, warding Alex off with her legs and feet. The minute they begin to roughhouse, Alex’s head throbs and he pulls back. 

“Go on. Delete them. Don't need you sending 'em round to your mates.”

“You look so fit, though. Like a fit turtle in a tight little kit.”

“Just…fucking Google me then, I look the same there.”

Alex’s tone switches from a tease to something harder and even he himself notices it, apologizing halfheartedly to Jasmine, who’s no longer smiling or laughing. 

“I'll go. Got cash for a cab?”

Alex’s face heats up and he freezes in the middle of the bedroom, avoiding her expectant gaze. As Jasmine redresses, Alex gingerly places fifty quid on the desk by her purse, because he has no idea how far away she lives and cabs are high budget in London. 

“Do you, erm, want me to call you? You put your number in my phone when you were on it?”

Jasmine looks at Alex like he’s asked her to fuck him in a Tottenham kit and she scrunches her intimidatingly beautiful face, as if there’s nothing she wants him to do less than call her.

“I didn’t. But you’d better reply to your mate, the one who sent you the video. Fucking needy bastard.”

The apartment is lush but small and she sees herself out before Alex can even offer to walk her to the door. Once he hears the front door close, he walks over to his phone and flips through the messages he missed. 

_M8 this fuckin vid!!!_  
_Cannot believe this, this’ll bang_  
_Theo’s isn’t funny at all, total bollocks, everyone knows he looks like Hamilton_  
_ffs Giroud! fucking French tosser given me a hard on_  
_m8 you are right I never saw you that way but youre right. turtle_  
_why the fuck aren’t you answering me did you pull_  
_sending this vid to everyone in my phone_  
_cowabungaaaaa lol_  
_okay laters see you at training_

“Jesus, Chambers, give it a rest.”

Alex doesn’t reply to Calum and throws his phone into his training bag. He goes into the bathroom and splashes water on his face, letting it drip down onto his chest and the floor before wiping it off. 

“Fit turtle in a tight little kit.”

He repeats, and laughs at himself in the mirror, only for the first time really realizing the tightness the top.

“She’s not wrong.”

He runs his hands down the front of the shirt, following all the odd bumps in the fabric. 

“Broad-chested. That’s more like it. Well-built. We can’t all be little matchsticks like Gibbo.”

He fixes his hair in the mirror before heading out. It’s the turn of August in London. He shakes out his legs while heading to the car park, entirely ready for any banter Calum throws his way, even through the residual haze of whatever happened last night. 

 

 

 

**March 2014**

“Hey, Ox.”

Carl says one day while they’re stretching beside each other at training. It’s an odd tone for Carl – a softer one, maybe even a bit frank, almost unfamiliar to Alex, so it catches Alex’s attention. They’re still coming down from a warm-up jog, and Carl’s voice breaks with a pant. 

“Hey, Jenko.”

“What’s the best thing that’s ever happened to you?”

Alex thinks for a moment, dipping lower into his hamstring stretch and groaning as he feels the hot pull of the muscle. 

“This club. One hundred percent. Why?”

“Right. Same. But. Listen. What if something that comes from the best thing that’s ever happened to you is better than the best thing that’s ever happened to you?”

Alex laughs, looking at Carl over his shoulder. 

“You’ve lost me, mate. Start over.”

“Okay. So.”

They move into a new stretch, Carl lying on his back on the spongy wet pitch and Alex gripping his leg, one hand at the knee and one at the ankle. He bends his leg slowly and pushes back, Carl hissing up at the grey sky. 

“You think it'll rain?”

“Out with it, Jenks.”

“So, okay. The club is the best thing that’s ever happened to you. And me. Let’s use me as the example. I sign for Arsenal. Best thing that’s ever happened to me. But then I come here and, I don’t know, say I win the Prem, or the Champions League, or something like that. Isn’t that, like, the best part of the best thing that’s ever happened to me? So doesn’t that make that the new best thing that’s ever happened to me?”

“Oh, I dunno. Because wouldn’t you just say ‘Signing for Arsenal is the best thing that’s ever happened to me because without Arsenal I wouldn’t have won all this great silverware’?” 

“See, I don't think so. Think of it like getting married.”

“You getting married, Jenks? Thanks for the invite.”

Alex switches legs and Carl jerks his leg, swatting Alex in the side. 

“I'm serious. Think of it like getting married. Getting married is the best thing that’s ever happened to you. But then you have a kid. That’s even better than the marriage, yeah? Like we, I guess, get married to the club, and then we, um. Have a kid. We link up.”

Carl pauses and the wind whistles through the training ground, sifting through the grass and through Carl's hair. It's getting longer and it always seems to be in his face. 

“Link up?”

“Connect in matches. Become mates. Link up.”

Alex lets Carl’s leg go and they both sit side by side, reaching for their boots in the next stretch. Alex looks aside at Carl but Carl's eyes stay straight ahead with an almost fierce determination. Alex’s stomach burns. He thinks he knows what Carl wants to say, and Alex thinks he wants to hear it. 

“What’re you saying, mate.”

“I’ve been…thinking a lot lately about what the best thing that ever happened to me is. And of course I said football, Arsenal. Natural response. But I wanted, I think, to say, you know. Us. Our thing.” 

_Our thing._ "Our thing." Alex repeats back, matter-of-factly, testing how it feels in his mouth, searching desperately for an adequate response. _Our. Thing._

“So, in this scenario, you and I are Arsenal’s children? No, wait. You and the club are married and I’m the kid? Fuck…okay, I’ve got it now. Our friendship is the child of our marriage to the club.”

Alex’s voice wavers despite his efforts to conceal the fact he is completely overcome with a unidentifiable wave of affection, something really visceral, burning, but slow, as if it were a long time coming. Carl laughs grimly, hanging his head between his outstretched arms. Alex scoots a bit closer to Carl so that their sides are aligned, and he nudges Carl, dropping a quick hand to Carl’s closest thigh and squeezing before drawing back. 

“Don’t have to make up a story to tell me that, Jenko. You know well I would lose my head without you around. So by your logic, you’re the new best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

Alex nudges Carl again when he notices Carl won’t look at him. 

“Jenko, I wouldn't recommend ever leaving this club. I'm the best you're ever going to get. Bloody irreplaceable.”

Carl finally laughs and shoves Alex completely over, getting a sharp look from Wenger as they help each other to their feet. Carl grabs Alex’s wrist briefly to keep Alex walking in time with him and squeezes as they rejoin the rest of the squad. It surprises Alex and he draws his arm away, turning back to Jenko with a laugh. Alex is met with an expression of something that looks like confusion.

“You’re affectionate today.”

Alex quips back and he can almost see Carl retreat a little, brushing his fingers through his hair. Alex knows he's said the wrong thing, but he isn’t familiar with this part of their relationship that crumbles under banter, at least not as familiar as Carl seems to be. Again, Alex thinks, _our thing_. 

“Sorry, Jenko, I didn’t mean –”

“Just didn't want to forget to...tell you about this girl that’s been chatting me up. You’re always asking me about girls.”

There’s a flatness to Carl’s voice and a discomfort to their partnership on the training pitch for the first time. Alex wonders if he's broken their _thing_ before he even knew was it was. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Throwing it way back. 
> 
> Alex takes that moment to look up and the sheer size of the Emirates almost crushes him, puts a weight on and water in his lungs. It feels simultaneously like the best and worst decision he's ever made.

**June 2011**

He's at Southampton, still reeling from their promotion to the Championship. He's mates with Rickie Lambert, which, in the 2010/11 season at Soton, is a very cool thing for him. He's only scored slightly fewer goals than Adam Lallana, he came in third for assists. He knows he was a part of that promotion and no one lets him forget that. A secure first-team position is his boyhood dream achieved. Ten years in the youth system, finally he's made the first team, and the impossible happens. Promotion! They've only just made the Championship, and the Prem is already in sights. 

He clearly remembers, one night in June, his dad tells him he's going to Arsenal. Plain and simple.

"Can I leave?" 

Alex asks, and his dad launches into a spiel about contractual obligations and what's best. But Alex is asking if he will survive a move away. 

"Dad, Soton's all I know." 

"Doesn't this excite you? A _top_ club is interested. I'm really eager for you to make this move if everything solidifies - hopefully that will happen as soon as possible. We've got to continue your development." 

"Of course. It's bleedin' _Arsenal_ , I'm thrilled. Just...where do I even fit in that squad. I'm not up to par with, you know, take your pick of the bunch. Finishing fourth in the Prem, runners up for Carling, the Champions League, for fuck's - erm, for Christ's sake. I want that. But I'm not that. Yet."

"Think of England. If you sign with Arsenal, you'll be looked at for call-ups."

Alex smirks and sinks lower into the couch in his living room.

"You know, Dad. Sometimes I think you're just trying to make me into your own little Theo." They both laugh.

"Walcott's a good boy. Don't compare yourself to him, you're different."

"I know, I'm more of a Gareth anyway. Gotten any calls from Spurs?"

This really makes them laugh and Alex feels a little lighter. He knows his dad will try to convince him that _Southampton's youth academy is a springboard, Alex. Southampton isn't somewhere you stay or build your life around._ Alex wishes often that his father would not have been a footballer himself so Alex could have the upper hand when it came to making decisions about his career. 

"Can I at least think about it? Can I talk to the boss and the boys about it?"

"You do what you like, Alex. There'll be a bit of heat coming your way over these next few weeks. Transfer speculation. I've already gone on the record and expressed my wish for you to join Arsenal. But ultimately, I suppose, it's up to you."

"Can anything really be up to me? I'm seventeen. I'm a professional footballer and I still live with my mum and dad. Clearly I don't make decisions yet."

Alex's father rubs his hair as he leaves the living room and heads immediately to the kitchen, picking up the phone and dialing who Alex assumes is an Arsenal rep, because his father is on the phone for hours. Alex thinks about calling Theo, with whom he is vaguely acquainted, but can't make himself. Instead, he lays on the couch, listening to the sound of numbers flying around the kitchen, the numbers what Alex and his legs are worth to a Premier League club. 

 

**August 2011**

A week or so before his eighteenth birthday, Alex signs for Arsenal. He's young, thin, overwhelmed, certainly not someone who looks worth twelve million pounds, fifteen million with add-ons. But that's what the contract says, and who is Alex to argue with that.

A proper goodbye to Southampton never happens. Alex is sick over that for months despite the well-wishes coming in from all sides, even from his former teammates. Texts and letters and phone calls come in one giant wave immediately following his signing for Arsenal, and hearing Ricky, Adam, José, Morgan - people he looked up to - wish him well makes him homesick for Staplewood. _A Saint's always a Saint, yeah? See you in the Prem soon enough._ And he could hear them all smiling or read it in their messages. 

Alex figures it is easier to be loved and preferred at a small club like Soton and what is now registering, the first time he meets Arsenal's first team, is that he won't be starting. Gone are those days. Theo greets him warmly and Alex does the same, clinging onto whatever relationship Southampton has forged between them. It's a tour of the training ground and Theo sticks around, spritely and just really loving buzzing around all the new recruits. There are quite a few - Alex recognizes faces and is soon introduced to Arteta from Everton, Mertesacker from Werder Bremen, Campbell from somewhere in Costa Rica, Gervinho from Lille, Santos from Fenerbahçe, and a few others. 

"What a diverse bunch we've got here. Not a lot of English lads."

Alex says to Theo after Wenger comes by and shakes his hand, welcoming him warmly to Arsenal for the fiftieth time.

"Weird, innit. Just you and I now, plus Jackie and this one here. From Charlton. Jenkinson."

Jackie is Jack Wilshere, who Alex has not met yet but looks forward to meeting. And when all the new recruits are saying hello to one another, he meets Carl Jenkinson, someone he vaguely recognizes from League One but Alex doesn't say anything about League One. They're at Arsenal now, and that wouldn't be polite, seeing as Soton managed to escape League One, unlike Charlton. Carl, however, comes right out with it.

"Hiya. Good fortunes as of late with Soton, yeah? Fucking Charlton, right. Never gonna get promoted without me. I bet Soton will get promoted to the Prem this season. Maybe should have stuck around, you'd be worth even more than you are now."

Alex stares up at him incredulously as they forego shaking hands and just get to talking. Theo makes a face at Alex and walks away.

"You've scared him off. Improper talk for a first meeting of Arsenal lads."

"He's a good boy. I guess yet another 'welcome to Arsenal' is in order. I'm Carl, by the way."

"Alex. These training facilities are bang on. So high budget."

"So you're a center mid. The Sotonian Xavi."

"I'm from Portsmouth really."

"It's all the same, innit."

"And you're a - no, hang on, I'll get it. Lemme guess. Left-back. Ashley Cole incarnate."

"Ha! Right-back, thanks. Cafu, more like."

They're all in street clothes because they didn't come to practice. Neither of the two are dressed particularly well as compared to the others, and the others also seem older and less engrossed in every single detail of the ground and every blade of fresh green pitch. It's an clear, windy, crisp afternoon and it lights Alex up. For the first time, he anticipates this new step in his career with excitement instead of anxiety. By the dreamy, glowing smile on Carl's face, Alex can tell he feels the same way.

"This is like bloody Christmas."

"Better. Better than Christmas."

After the new transfers are acquainted (immediately after meeting Arteta, Carl leans down to mutter _he's bloody fit, ain't he. In an objective way. It's intimidating!_ and Alex cackles), they head to the Emirates and, to Alex and Carl's amazement, Van Persie is there, tall, grey, gorgeous as you like. Wenger greets Robin with a pat to the cheek and introduces him as captain, and Carl and Alex look at each other. 

"Only took Fàbregas fucking off for him to get the captaincy, eh? Been here seven years, about time."

Carl whispers and Alex covers his mouth, tearing up with the effort to keeps his laugh in. Robin notices and asks with a smile if Alex wants to say something. Alex blushes and it's Carl's turn to laugh.

"Just, erm. Love your work."

As soon as Robin turns his attention back to the group, Carl leans down again but Alex shoves him off.

"Enough banter, mate, you're going to get me in trouble."

"I'd bet anything that Van Persie's gone next season."

Alex crosses his arms and looks on at his new captain as they take slow, lingering laps of the Emirates pitch, taking in the sheer immensity of their new home ground. 

"Seems like a good dedicated lad, Robin. Why leave when you're just appointed captain? Wenger clearly loves him."

"Why leave your club when you just got promoted?"

Alex hisses and jabs Carl in the side with his elbow.

"Well, he'd be a bloody snake unless he left the Prem. To turn around in three months time and play your old squad. Cold-blooded."

"I dunno. Don't you think we'll be playing Charlton or Southampton eventually?"

"In a few years. It'll be different then. Things will have settled down. People will forget about us. Besides, Arsenal fans are hysterics, everyone knows that. You step one toe out of line in their eyes and you're a goner."

Carl grins as Alex grimaces, wondering what he has gotten himself into as Wenger launches into an introduction to their diet plan. Alex takes that moment to look up and the sheer size of the Emirates almost crushes him, puts a weight on and water in his lungs. It feels simultaneously like the best and worst decision he's ever made. 

 

**August 2014**

Alex arrives at training and of course, Calum is buzzing around, waiting for him. Alex loves young Chambo (himself being old Chambo) because he reminds him of home, of Soton and of the Saints. Calum is pure Southampton, which seems to be a precursor to Gunnerhood these days. Calum is always primed with banter, followed by a well-meaning compliment just in case he touches a nerve, which he never does. He's so good and so young, he reminds Alex of himself a few years earlier. 

"Chambo! Do you know what today is?"

"No, I don't. Your birthday?"

Alex figures he is really friends with Calum at this point because he actually knows his birthday, and it's not today. It has only been a few weeks since Calum has arrived at the club and the two of them have been inseparable. Calum snorts and shoves him gently.

"Not even close. It's the third anniversary of your first training session with the club."

And Alex stops, looking at Calum, who seems very pleased.

"You didn't even know that, Chambo? Bloody brilliant. I'm the best mate."

"That's not you being the best mate, that's you being creepy. Absolutely sus. Someone had to have told you that. Theo or Arteta or Merte, they started round the same time as me-"

"No, no one told me."

And Alex nods hesitantly, trying his best to take in his younger counterpart's enthusiasm when his phone rings in his pocket. Calum runs on to catch up with Bellerin and Alex glances down at his phone, his mouth going dry. 

_Three years ago today first day training for arsenal! things are way different now aren't they. soz i'm not around to celebrate the date. i owe you one_

Alex nearly chokes and immediately puts his phone back in his pocket. _That's not how things are going to go,_ Alex thinks. _Who the fuck does Jenko think he is, not talking to me for weeks. And why does everyone know about this anniversary and I don't._

Alex angrily pulls his phone back out and types with force, nearly running straight into the boss as he enters the locker room.

_way different. it's nothing mate. and you've always owed me one. you never come round anyway jenks._

Immediate response.

_neither do you, wanker_

And Alex puts his phone away without response. Because things are way different now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> l o v e writing about Arsenal. Guilty pleasure


End file.
